\Welcome to Mooseport"" is merely mildly amusing when it very well could have been uproarious. Although the film depends on the mismatch between Gene Hackman's dignity and Ray Romano's charm, there is not much else here. Those two characters take the movie as far as it can go but are drowned out by too many secondary performers who are little more than annoying voices or buffoons.
Monroe ""Eagle"" Cole (Hackman), the former U.S. president, returns to Mooseport, Maine, following his defeat for re-election and a bitter divorce. He settles in quickly and is offered some reprieve and a chance to make a pile of money from a speaking tour. He is immediately given a chance to run for the mayor of the small town and get away from his ex-wife. Meanwhile, Handy Harrison (Romano) is laboring away as a plumber and stumbling his way through his relationship with his longtime girlfriend, Sally Mannis (Maura Tierney). Harrison also enters the race for mayor but loses Mannis' interest for a while when she ends up on a date with Cole. One man knows the town through and through while the other knows politics all too well.
The contest works on the collision of cutthroat politics and nave, small town innocence. Where Harrison can solve any problem with a friendly wave and a wide smile, Cole needs his entourage to dream up something big. That disparity is a given and everything else about the setting falls into place immediately afterward. There is the problem.
Mooseport resembles a Norman Rockwell painting in too great of detail. Instead of being a location, it's an ideal. The people are always smiling, the scenery is stunningly serene and the atmosphere is joyous. There are no yellow teeth or chain stores in Mooseport. It's supposed to be in Maine but nobody speaks with anything resembling a Maine accent. (The movie was, after all, shot in Canada.)
In the middle of this cloud-nine setting there are too many caricatures of characters give some definition to the small town. Morris Gutman (Wayne Robson) is the best example. His enthusiasm is unreal, his smile is permanent and his role is unbelievable. If Mooseport were the template for every place with less than 10,000 people, the town drunk would be the town comedian. But it doesn't stop with Gutman. There is a naked jogger, a yelling old man, a spunky old woman and a flirtatious clerk at Harrison's store. These characters are largely superfluous and only serve to make Mooseport more aw-shucks-ridden than real.
Thankfully Hackman and Romano give performances that make the movie more enjoyable. Hackman takes the foolishness of the premise in stride and freely mixes his stern faade with well-timed jokes. In one scene he turns the humor on himself when he says, ""I had dignity once. Does anyone remember this?"" Romano finds a good outlet to go beyond his TV show. He mumbles and winces with professional awkwardness. Where Hackman brings gravity, Romano defies it with a dog named Plunger and effortless punch lines.
But even if the two make ""Mooseport"" interesting, but the rest of the cast make it awkward. ""Welcome to Mooseport"" is a movie too silly to be funny.
